


Born Again

by argylsocks



Category: GLTAS, Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Time Loop, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-12
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argylsocks/pseuds/argylsocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their quest fails. Razer lives each moment Aya wasn’t there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born Again

**Author's Note:**

> Initial inspiration from [this post](http://rufftoon.tumblr.com/post/45170799774/always-be-wary-of-time-travel-stories-theyll). I just made it sad. I have no idea what this is, but…it happened? Unbeta'd.

Becoming undone—becoming nothing—was similar to dying, Razer thought. Except, where he welcomed death, he railed and fought against this…unbeing as hard as he possibly could.

He realized now that Saint Walker had been right. Hope lay deep within him and that hope was not easily extinguished, even when it seemed like its flame was already snuffed out and leaving only embers of disappointment behind.  
He should have known that embers could flare into a raging inferno at the barest breeze—such knowledge would have saved him the despair that consumed him before it disappeared.

 

In the first instant after Aya fulfilled her goal, nothing changed. Rather, it appeared that nothing changed. Razer barely had a moment to give a cursory appraisal of Hal and Kilowog’s faces to see his furrowed brow mirrored there. Something was off, very wrong, and very uncorrectable. If he had to describe the feeling and was given the chance to do so, Razer would liken it to the sort of paradoxically weighty emptiness—or was it an empty weight?—one experiences after the loss of something or someone very dear to them.

 

In the next instant, the unnamed emotion washed through his existence, almost soothing in his being bathed in it. A faraway pain, almost inconsequential, lingered on the edge of his consciousness.

 

In the third instant, that pain became overwhelming, rushing across his being, softened as the earth after rain. It was worse than the burns from the Firewind he had so foolishly gained as a child. The fire consumed him, burning him from the inside, turning him to ash and nothing while he could do nothing but freeze, face contorted and teeth grinding in a grim imitation of his once-frequent grins. The ash inside him separated from the rest of him, at first as if atom by atom. Then molecule by molecule then cell by cell then tissue by tissue then entire limbs until his very soul was sucked away in a vortex of blue-white light.

 

In the fourth instant, he realized that he was no longer with his fr…the Earthman and the Bilovoxian near their failure. Instead, he lay under the heavy, dull red boot of Atrocitus, gasping for untenable breath as his vision blurred. He lifted his free hand and saw steel grey blood. The fire was still there, distant in another dimension, another death. It was a good day to die.

 

In the fifth instant, the Green Lanterns that had delivered him to this Grogforsaken prison were long gone. The remnants of the induced memories—as well as the accompanying agony—evaporated as the infernal contraption audibly wound down. He recognized the faint, disgustingly desperate “No!” as his own. He would gladly endure this torture, this petty trial, the electrocution, the grey blood that wept from the open sores that were once fingernails, the nigh unbearable cramping of all his muscles, just for the brief respite of Ilana’s face. Everything was worth it, just for that. Except he didn’t see Ilana in the dreams he denied the origin of. The woman’s eyes glowed bright green and her voice was too high pitched to be Ilana, yet she wore her face. A long time ago, before the Warden and his guards decided that Razer’s despair was far too amusing to consume their prisoner, Razer decided that she was a remnant of some past life.

 

In the sixth instant, he pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders, wincing against the bite of the Firewind on his cheeks. He had to find the perfect gift for his uncle, as was custom for the host of the city’s Firewind Festival, and had taken too long in his quest. To say he was excited was an understatement: It would be the first year he and Ilana would present themselves as official, recognized lovers, as well as the first time since their marriage their families would be joined in celebration.

Giddy at the thought, Razer’s boot-clad toe found the edge of a sand-buried stone, and he tumbled to the ground, the fragile silk shawl flying away as the Firewind caught it. As he watched it, waiting for it to burn its unprotected state, a loud “No!” from seemingly far away escaped him. He felt the dampness of his split cheek fade as he panted, waiting for the fabric to turn to ash. When it didn’t, he rose unsteadily, wary of an illusion.

A familiar, high voice rang out, “You dropped this,” clearly from the haze of the storm. The source of the voice was hidden but he surmised that the source was the same as the sphere of green light encapsulating the shawl.

He hunched in silence, prepared to pull a dagger hidden in his sleeve, as the sphere floated further away, coming to a rest in the cloaked hands of a stout figure.

“Did you not hear me?” The figure walked—floated forward slowly, cloak billowing in the Firewind.

Palming the grip of one of his blades, Razer shouted, “What do you want?”

The figure was no longer forthcoming with its words and drifted closer to where Razer, now gripping the handle firmly, stood. Once in range, he slashed deeply at its outstretched palms, making the sphere bob absently in the air, only to realize that the blade slid off the black metal.

He could only gaze at the significantly shorter figure, now unhooded, in horror. It was a robot, obviously of alien origin; if that were the only feature, Razer would have quietly admired the artisanship that had gone into making her. Nothing like her could have existed on Volksreg, apparent from the dense, white metal that accented her main features. That made her resemblance to Ilana, obvious as it was with her sharp, oblong eyes and soft-featured cheeks, all the more terrifying.

He could only focus on the faint grey halos around the white lights buried deep in what appeared to be black glass as the robot said, with what he would have called despair in any other being, “You tried to kill me.” He remained frozen in place as she deposited first the sphere with the silk shawl then his dropped dagger in his limp hands before gripping them firmly to force him to hold the items.

Razer regained his mind as she walked away, dull cloak blown away during their exchange, exposing her unspoiled surface to the elements. “Wait!” he called, his own voice sounding lost to his ears, “Please…wait.” It was a foolish attempt—she was yards away and the roar of the Firewind erased voices even a few inches apart. He felt a weighty emptiness, unexplained, echo deep within himself, somewhere deeper than his heart.

Impossibly, her clear, high voice rang back to him. “What is wrong, Razer?” She kept walking, now half a street away from him.

A choked-out laugh of disbelief as illogical, renewed hope washed over him. “Do…Do I know you?” he whispered.

Seconds passed, and he felt that stupid, unwelcome, familiar hope fade. His wounded cheeks stung from the burn of the Firewind and the salt tears he didn’t know the origin of. He couldn’t see her gently swaying figure anymore, swallowed up by the deep haze as everything else was. Nevertheless, he could tell, from some inexplicable link that had been woken within him, that she was still nearby.

“No.”

She disappeared, gone to some other world, leaving Razer’s thin lips to draw taut against his teeth despite his resistance. “Very well. Until we meet again.”


End file.
